Best Practice Modena

CREAMOS, A NETWORK FOR CREATIVE AND CULTURAL INDUSTRIES IN MODENA

 The local economy & situation i.e. the internal and external context 

Modena’s economic production base is characterised by the presence of a heavy, traditional industry, formed by thousands of SME. More than the 35% of the Modenese enterprises have less than 5 employees and around 70% of Modenese businesses have less than 50 employees. Mechanics, ceramics, textile/clothes are the more traditional and deep-rooted sectors in the territory, although biomedical and agroindustrial sectors are becoming more and more important.

As such,Modena's economic activityhas allowed it to attain economic and welfare levels similar to the ones of the most advanced European regions.

Modena’s businesses are dynamic and often highly specialised. They use to work in close contact with the customers (normally other enterprises) to develope products and services really able to satisfy production prolems. A clear example of this is the mechanical sector. Mechanical and metal products Sector mainly involves manufacturing and intermediate products for the various mechanical sectors producing finished goods; this includes over 1,700 firms which constitutes one of the richest networks of subcontractors operating in the mechanical sector in the whole of Europe. This industry segment may be considered as a large reservoir of skills available to anyone who wants to produce a mechanical product in the area of Modena.

There are a number of super specialised small business producing pieces specifically designed according to the customers needs. This “tailor-made” production represents an important step in the innovation and quality chain of the system as whole, and develope on a great extent the ability of the small business in finding out new technical solutions to the customers production issues.

Modena’s industry is strongly integrated at international level. About half of goods and services (4,500 millions EUR) are destined for foreign markets, which demonstrates the international appeal of Modena’s products. Modena’s main market for foreign trade is the European Union, followed by Ucraina, Russia and Turkey. Modena's enterprises also have an attitude to internazionalisation, mostly in the final part of the value chain (commercialization of the products, logistic hubs for the distribution, customer care ); but there is an increasing attitude to a more radical approach to the internazionalisation, i.e. The building of new production sites in foreign markets. Within our industrial sectors:

There's a strong tradition of association and cooperation. Cooperative as a typology of business is pretty common, not only in the care sector but also in industry distribution and agriculture. Beside that, Modena people have a great attitude in joining cultural/volunteering associations. The CCI Sector in Modena

In Italy the creative sector hasn't an clear identity, as understood as a distinct industrial sector, neither it is recognized as a particularly dynamic and strategic economic sector. This general situation influences what's happening in Modena. There is no special attention to thecreative and cultural sector; there is no common (and official) definition of what is to be considered inside this sector and what is to be considered outside. There are no studies and surveys available. This is despite the number of industries within this sector growing in Modena, according to our mapping. One consequence of this this lack of identity or recognition, is that there is no legislation that has been passed, specifically pertaining to the needs and requirements of the creative sector. Consequently it is difficult not only to identify the Creative and Cultural Industries, but also support and promote their development.

Our intervention was developed to address this problem. '''What is the nature of the intervention? What is the effect of the intervention?'''

WHY

The Cultural Department and the Economic Policies Department of the Municipality of Modena, with the help of some external expert (The Hub) who already carried on similar survey in other regions of Italy began a process of identifying the problems and needs of the creative sector through mapping, interviews, workshops and focus groups. We started in the spring 2009, following a “viral” methodology. First, we contacted people from the creative sector we already knew, than we looked for categories which were under represented in order to balance the sample. We asked creative people to answer the survey and to give us new contacts within the creative sector; i.e., creative people they knew or they were working with. We used these contacts not only to answer the on-line survey but also as a target for some qualitative interviews we did during the summer.

In the meanwhile, we asked to a more general target of creative people to answer the on-line survey. We did it by letter, but also using the website and some mailing lists we already had. For example, the Young Artists Archive, the mailing list of our Music Centre, etc. In a couple of months we collected about 170 questionnaires Our initial findings were:


 * 1) The businesses were small; about the 40% are micro-businesses. Creative people who answered to the questionnaire were mostly working alone (sole traders) or inside companies with a maximum of 5 persons
 * 2) The industries were poorly networked, and they didn’t know each other.
 * 3) Despite many of the industries conducting a large part of their business beyond Modena, locally the demand for creative products and services was weak.

WHAT

Of the findings above, we felt that we were in the best position to improve the networking of the creative industries. We felt that if we addressed this matter as our priority, we could better develop support mechanisms and initiatives that addressed the other findings.

From the begininng of the Cities project we choosed to create a LSG not with the representatives of the local insitutitions, but with the creative people willing to work with us at the project. So we already had a very small network (about 15 members) who was discussing with us about the needs, the problems and the opportunities of the creative sector; we worked to develope it.

The website went on just before the press conference, which was held simultaneously in a traditional way and through Second Life. This was important to underline the importance of networking and of connecting people, spaces and experiences.

Actually, many people worked to realize the events. Three persons work together to design the logo and the communication supports (leaflet, poster). Two persons acted as a press agency of the initiative. Three coordinator (one for each different area of the town involved in CreaMos) collected proposals of micoroevents from the creative people/businesses in their area and acted as local ambassadors of the event

The Municipality of Modena provided a person in charge of taking care of the general organization of the event, providing authorizations, and so on.

The event in itself was a mosaic of micro initiatives, normally taking place in different days in each different area. They were quite diverse one form the other, reflecting the molteplicity of the creative sector: art performances, gastronomy, ICT funny events, video animation performance on the buildings, dance ballet in the squares, photography exhibitions, etc. Creative people worked for free, whilst the Municipality covered the cost of the materials needed for the initiatives, promotion and set ups. Finally, the cost for the Municipality was about 18,000 Eur plus 2,800 Eur to pay the person in charge of coordinating the general organization.

We have no statistics about the participation at the event, but we have estimated that about a thousand people attended the CreaMos festival.

Some lessons learnt from this experience:
 * 1) work together on a concrete project is for the creative people a brilliant way to experiment new partnership and to generate creative initiatives. One of the most successful initiatives, called “Osteria web 2.0” for example put together ICT, gastronomy and conviviality. We set up a temporary small Restaurant, in which the waiters which were serving sandwiches and wine to the customers, sat down with them speaking of social network, ICT products and services. The creative people judged very posiitive the chanche given to know each other and experiment new joint projects.
 * 2) Some creative people asked for a remboursement of the expenses/ that was a way to pay the CreaMos-dedicated time. It was difficult to mantain an unique approach: for example, the dancers spent one week to exercise their performance and they asked for this time to be paied (as they were aking away time to teach dance at dance schools). We did it, but this caused some discussions between the network.
 * 3) Initiatives composing CreaMos were really a variety. For some people this was good, for other people it wasn't. The main remark was that it was too difficult for the public to follow a thread and to understand the vision behind the event.
 * 4) We realized CreaMos in three different part of the town, but we understood that for the next edition will be better to focus only on one of them. To concentrate all the initiatives is a way to produce a more massive impact. We experimented that the ideal location is the Villaggio Artigiano, a industrial and residential area built up in the 50s and not so far from the town center. It is a challenge to bring public there, as from 6 p.m it is a semi – desert area. But the location was really perfect. Creative initiatives there were surreal and astonishing.

3. Structuring the network (future development) - People involved in the network is thinking about buiding an association for the creative people (whitout the guide of the Municipality) - Construction of a portal dedicated to the members of the community and to be used as a smart way to disseminate information - Planning and realization of the second edition of the festival

What advice would you give others?

THE LESSONS WE LEARNT Recommandations: – be sure that people involved share a common vision of the network's goals – build a strong and shared identity (through a bottom up process) – mantain a variety of way to join and to take part in to the network (i.e. web platform, phisical meetings, ..) and communicate the information in every way – reinforce the connections trough different steps (web, meetings face to face, collaborations) – create chances for collaboration, in wich the roles are clearly defined – maintain high level of interest and involvement whit periodical and persevering contacts (is necessary somebody who works for it) trhrough different channel, i.e. social network, mailing list, newsletter, phone call and meetings